The present invention relates generally to combine harvesters and, more particularly, to improvements in the stone trap mounted in the floor of the combine feeder house.
Stone traps, such as those seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,565 issued to L. J. Knepper et al, on Jun. 22, 1982, can be actuated either electronically or mechanically. Once the presence of non-crop material, such as stones and other non-frangible material, the trap door is released to open a hole in the floor of the feeder house for the ejection of the non-crop material from the combine harvester. However, once the trap door was opened, it was necessary for the operator of the combine to stop operation of the machine, climb down from the cab mounted above the header for observation of the crop harvesting process and manually close the trap door to permit continued operation of the combine.
To satisfactorily overcome this problem, it would be necessary to provide a closing mechanism that would be simple to operate and have a low cost. Accordingly, devices such as an electric motor for powering the pivotal rotation of the trap door from its opened position to its closed position would be unacceptable because of the high cost factor. Furthermore, movement of the feeder house and header relative to the ground and/or portions of the frame of the combine have been provided by the hydraulic header lift cylinders interconnecting the feeder house and the combine main frame.